Mother Earth Monday:BE A SCIENTIST!! (Well, almost!) Biosphere 2 Open to the Public for the First Time

Once upon a time, scientists were locked inside for months at a time. They were learning how to manage the world’s largest enclosed ecosystem, BIOSPHERE II. Some escaped early but many stayed inside for over a year!

Now you can explore the facility, recently opened to the public. Click and enjoy a virtual tour too!

Out in the Arizona cheap jerseys desert there is a little research facility that is the closest thing to a real space base that you will find. Called Biosphere 2, it is a self contained ecosystem with an ocean, a desert and many other environments. Once to it was restricted to scientists, but now the biggest experiments are over and the living areas have been converted to educational purposes. Take the virtual tour today and then en plan a trip to Oracle, Arizona and see for yourself.

Visitors to Biosphere 2 will be allowed inside the famous domed facility for the first time, beginning Nov. 26. Columbia University, the new manager of the Biosphere 2 Center in Oracle, Arizona, has opened to the public the section that once free housed 15 “Biospherians” in a unique experiment in which they were to attempt to live self-sufficiently in a miniature world sealed from the outside.

Visitors will be able to tour the apartments, kitchen and dining room where the Biospherians worked and lived. From wholesale nfl jerseys this area, visitors will also be able to look out into the rain forest, ocean, desert, savannah and agricultural ecosystems that the Biospherians struggled to manage. Also on view will be the command-and-control asdasd room, still in use, where scientists monitor data collected by hundreds of sensors within the enclosed 3-acre ecological laboratory.

In addition, Columbia announced that the ground floor of the newly opened section will become the permanent home of a major exhibition on “Climate Change and Life on Earth”, which has toured museums throughout the country since 1992. The exhibits, developed by the American Museum of Natural History and the Environmental Defense Fund, examine past climate changes on Earth, the causes of potential greenhouse warming, its possible impacts on humans and society, and the choices people will have to make to manage the planet.

“The question most often asked by visitors to Biosphere 2 is ‘Why can’t I go inside the Biosphere?’ “, cheap jerseys China said Faye Yates, director of public affairs at Biosphere 2. “The answer now is, ‘You can.’ Visitors will be able to get a taste of what the Biospherians experienced and learn about the unexpected problems they encountered.”

“The new exhibits are an integral part of Columbia’s educational mission to teach students and the public about the complexity and delicate balance of the Earth’s ecosystems,” said George Rupp, president of Columbia University. “They complement our research mission to gain a fuller understanding of all the Earth’s interacting my natural systems, to learn how humakind affects and is affected by these systems, and to devise bold new strategies to become wiser stewards of our increasingly stressed planet.”

Columbia has sealed off the former habitation area from the rest of the Biosphere with glass, so that visitors can get a good view inside, while scientists can maintain a controllable environment within the rest of the unique facility. Experiments inside the large enclosed domes are aimed at helping cheap jerseys humans learn more about a future Earth where atmospheric carbon dioxide levels will be much greater than they are today. Researchers want to determine how different plants and ecosystems will respond china to potential global — warming — something that can only be guessed at now. The effort seeks to provide the basic scientific information necessary to help us devise ways to avoid environmental disasters SEO and to maximize benefits from possible changes.

“The newly installed exhibition on climate change is designed to inform the public about the potential for global warming on the planet,” said Stephanie Pfirman, science exhibits advisor at Biosphere 2 and chair of the Department of Environmental Science at Barnard College. “One of the greatest lessons learned from the original Biospherian experiments is that Earth’s systems cheap mlb jerseys are complicated, delicately balanced, and capable of dramatic changes that could affect all of us. We need to develop an awareness of our role in causing and preventing climatic changes.”

“This new experience for visitors, as well as the new educational and research program instituted by Columbia, help realize Ed Bass’s original vision of Biosphere 2 as a tool to investigate difficult issues in the management of the Earth and the education of future generations,” said William Harris, the new executive director and president of Biosphere 2 Center.

Edward Bass, a Texas businessman and environmentalist, co-founded the original project, which broke ground in 1988. “I think visitors cheap jerseys will be thrilled with this opportunity to explore life inside the Biosphere,” Bass said.